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The NFL has a competition problem
Cold, Hard Football Facts for October 27, 2009
In the wake of Blowout Sunday, the Chief Troll wrote: “We don't have figures on double-digit blowouts from year to year, but we'll try to dig them up. Our instinct, in the wake of a rare week in which 10 of 12 games were decided by 10 points or more, is that blowouts have rarely if ever been more common.”
We got the information we needed from our very own Ombudsdouche, Mark Wald, who apparently is not just a belligerent hack, he's a belligerent hack with a pretty good database of blowouts. (In fact, you can see the entire spreadsheet here, showing the number of double-digit blowouts in the NFL every year since 1933.)
His data confirms that the instinct of the Cold, Hard Football Facts was in this case correct: Week 7 of the 2009 season was a historic period of non-competitiveness in NFL history. In fact, based on Sunday's results, the obvious gap between the great teams and the poor teams this year, not to mention some other recent trends highlighted below, and it looks like the NFL's competition committee has its work cut out for it at the end of the season.
Here's a look at Week 7 2009:
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6 of 13 games were decided by 28 points or more
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11 of 13 games were decided by 10 points or more
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12 of 13 games were decided by 7 points or more
The six 28-point-plus blowouts leap screaming off the list. Yes, that is a record, or at least it ties one, said Wald: Week 14 of the 1970 season, the first year of the AFL-NFL merger, is the only other week in NFL history that produced six 28-point-plus blowouts.
It’s a fair mathematical comparison, too.
There were 26 teams in the NFL in 1970, so there were 13 games each week. The NFL has 32 teams these days, but six of them were idle this week. So there were 13 games in Week 7 2009, as well.
Here are the Week 7 2009 blowouts:
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Green Bay 31, Cleveland 3
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New England 35, Tampa Bay 7
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San Diego 37, Kansas City 7
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Cincinnati 45, Chicago 10
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Indianapolis 42, St. Louis 6
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N.Y. Jets 38, Oakland 0
Here are the Week 14 1970 blowouts:
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L.A. Rams 31, N.Y. Giants 3
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Minnesota 37, Atlanta 7
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San Francisco 38, Oakland 7
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Cincinnati 45, Boston Patriots 7
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Miami 45, Buffalo 7
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Dallas 52, Houston Oilers 10
Week 13 of the 1963 season produced five 28-point-plus blowouts (AFL and NFL combined), according to Wald. Only a handful of weeks in pro football history (11) have resulted in as many as four 28-point-plus blowouts. So what we witnessed this past Sunday was extremely rare in very competitive NFL.
The NFL, meanwhile, tracks the number of games each year decided by three points or less and decided by seven points or less. In addition, as you've seen above, Wald has tracked the games each year decided by double digits.
In each instance, using Wald's data and the NFL's data, the 2009 season is shaping up as one of the least competitive on record.
NFL games decided by 10+ plus points (1970-present)
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Year |
Total games |
Decided by 10+ points |
Pct. |
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1 |
1970 |
182 |
114 |
62.6% |
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2 |
1973 |
182 |
109 |
59.8% |
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3 |
1976 |
196 |
117 |
59.7% |
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4 |
1972 |
182 |
106 |
58.2% |
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5 |
1975 |
182 |
106 |
58.2% |
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6 |
1992 |
224 |
128 |
57.1% |
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7 |
1981 |
224 |
127 |
56.7% |
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8 |
1985 |
224 |
127 |
56.7% |
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9 |
1990 |
224 |
123 |
54.9% |
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10 |
2009 |
103 |
56 |
54.4% |
As you'll see, the list of years with the most blowout victories is dominated by the early 1970s, the years in the immediate aftermath of the merger.
But after years of trending toward parity, the 2009 season is clearly breaking from the mold. It's the first year in 17 to make the list of top 10 blowout seasons: more than 54 percent of games here in 2009 have been decided by double digits.
The trend away from competitiveness is also evident if we look at the games decided by more than a field goal. The list is dominated by seasons in the pre-parity years of the 1970s. But two seasons leap off the top 10 list below: 2008 and 2009.
Games decided by more than a field goal (1970-present)
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Year |
Total games |
Decided by > 3 points |
Pct. |
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1 |
1973 |
182 |
154 |
84.6 |
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2 |
1985 |
224 |
186 |
83.0 |
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3 |
1977 |
196 |
160 |
81.6 |
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4 |
2009 |
103 |
84 |
81.6 |
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5 |
1970 |
182 |
148 |
81.3 |
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6 |
1987 |
210 |
170 |
81.0 |
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7 |
1971 |
182 |
147 |
80.8 |
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8 |
1975 |
182 |
147 |
80.8 |
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9 |
1976 |
196 |
158 |
80.6 |
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10 |
2008 |
256 |
206 |
80.5 |
The NFL has long tried to legislate an even playing field. But the record-setting rash of blowout victories in Week 7, and the trend of games over the past two years decided by more than a humble field goal, indicate that the NFL's efforts are falling flat.
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The Cold, Hard Football Facts posed a question Monday 
